How Do Career Development Courses Help Chinese Undergraduate Students Achieve Healthy and Quality Career Development?

Postsecondary institutions worldwide generally provide career development courses or similar courses to better prepare undergraduate students for healthy and quality future careers. Understanding whether these career development courses positively affect students' career-related outcomes is crucial. Utilizing survey data collected from a large research university located in the eastern part of China, we found that students who have taken at least one career course exhibited career awareness and career planning abilities that were 0.096 and 0.147 units higher, respectively, than those of students who have not taken career courses, with other variables held constant. More specifically, an additional career course was statistically significantly associated with a 0.099, 0.084, and 0.175 unit increase in students' career awareness, job search self-efficacy, and career planning ability, respectively. A student's college major and annual family income seemed to be good predictors for a student's career awareness, job search self-efficacy, and career-planning ability. Furthermore, the more career courses that a student took, the higher the career awareness, job search self-efficacy, and career planning ability that the student had. With these findings in mind, our study recommends postsecondary stakeholders to leverage such courses to help students better prepare for a healthy and quality career development.

The impacts of innovation capability and social adaptability on undergraduates’ employability: The role of self-efficacy

Introduction: As the world is consistently driven by the infusion of new-generation information technology and the knowledge economy, college students are placed under mounting pressure in developing occupation-related competencies. Their employability has been receiving growing concerns from stakeholders such as higher education institutions, governments, employers, parents, and even student groups themselves as it plays a decisive role in occupational success, social stability, and economic prosperity. Under the theoretical guidance of social cognitive theory, this study set out to investigate the cognitive and psychological mechanisms through which innovation capability, social adaptability, and self-efficacy influence the employability of college students. It also attempts to analyze the mediating role of self-efficacy in the relations between innovation capability, social adaptability, and employability which has been rarely studied in academia.

Methods: A quantitative approach was employed in this study. Data was collected from 726 undergraduates from 9 higher education institutions in the mainland of China by questionnaire survey method. The research model showed a good fit (χ2/df=4.46, RMSEA=0.069, SRMR=0.049, GFI=0.934, CFI=0.965, NFI=0.955, TLI=0.955). Structural equation modeling (SEM) was applied to this study for data analysis.

Results: The findings showed that innovation capability, social adaptability, and self-efficacy significantly and positively correlates with undergraduates’ employability. University students with stronger innovation capability, social adaptability, and self-efficacy tend to be more employable in the job market. Model 4 of SPSS PROCESS Macro revealed that self-efficacy played a mediating role in the correlation between innovation capability, social adaptability, and employability.

Discussion: Undergraduates with higher levels of innovation capability and social adaptability are more confident in their abilities to take specific actions and achieve expected goals, which in turn intensifies their employability. The study suggests the possibility of improving undergraduates’ employability through positive interference of innovation capability, social adaptability, and self-efficacy in the era of information technology and knowledge-based economy.

Increasing Refugees’ Work and Job Search Self-Efficacy Perceptions by Developing Career Adaptability

Today’s unstable labor market increasingly requires flexibility and adaptability to cope with the threat of unemployment. Though this threat can cause distress in many people, its negative impact is even more significant on vulnerable workers such as refugees. This study aimed to explore if a career counseling intervention designed for refugees (CCfR) preceded increases in career adaptability and, therefore, perceptions of both work self-efficacy (WSe) and job search self-efficacy (JSSe). The study was conducted in Italy and involved a sample of 233 refugees, who were asked to respond to a questionnaire available in three languages (Italian, French, and English). Data analysis showed that improvement was demonstrated in all the variables considered, namely, career adaptability (composed by concern, control, confidence, and curiosity), WSe, and JSSe. In addition, the increase in career adaptability explained the increase in refugees’ WSe and JSSe; at the opposite, only the initial level of curiosity was found to explain the increase in WSe, while JSSe was completely independent from the initial level of the career adaptability.

Leaving the military to work in civilian society: career adaptability by South Korean short- and mid-term veterans

Purpose

Military officials who become accustomed to the distinct culture of the military face a variety of challenges when attempting to transition into the civilian workforce as veterans. These hardships even pertain to short- and mid-term veterans (SMVs) who leave the military at early career stages to pursue alternative career options. In this study, the authors explored the career construction decisions made by South Korean SMVs who left their military careers and successfully transitioned into the civilian workforce.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors used a phenomenology approach and conducted a semi-structured interview with 19 SMVs to unpack their career transition experiences.

Findings

The authors identified the motivational factors that encourage SMVs to develop their four career adaptabilities and illustrated the necessity for such qualities pre- and post-transition. Furthermore, the authors characterized each individual experience by the theoretical constructs of career adaptability and highlighted the contextual characteristics that prompted the emergence of career adaptability.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the understanding of career mobility at early career stages and how career adaptability is developed and manifested in the context of transitioning from the military to civilian society.

Linking Protean Career Orientation with Career Optimism: Career Adaptability and Career Decision Self-Efficacy as Mediators

Protean career orientation has become prevalent among young workers in contemporary workplace. Little is known about whether this orientation is related to their positive expectation of future career development. We developed a conceptual model to investigate the relationship between protean career orientation and career optimism. Informed by social construction theory and social cognitive career theory, we considered career adaptability and career decision self-efficacy (CDSE) as potential mediators in the model. Several hypotheses were proposed and tested with a sample of 170 undergraduate students in Hong Kong. The results of path analysis and bootstrapping indicated that protean career orientation has a positive relationship with career optimism, and such relationship is fully mediated by career adaptability and CDSE. Our study has yielded novel into how some individual differences factors affect the development of career optimism among university students.